This Past Month: March + An Announcement

(a.k.a. #lifehappened and caught up with me)

At last! March is over! I have to say that this month went by much quicker than February, which is strange, because February was three days shorter....

Anyway.

March was a pretty productive month for writing. I guess you could call it average. No crazy scrambling to prepare for betas. No doing major re-writes with an alpha reader. No... stress (wow, really? xD) The other day I even decided to take a day off from writing because "everything was well."

I finished re-outlining Outcast for the most part, but the plot is a bit crazy, so I decided to go over the first 25% with my alpha reader to know if I needed to make some major changes. (and now I bet everyone's wondering what's so strange with it. I can't tell you xD) It's frustrating weird to have the exact opposite problems with the sequel than I had with the first book. Writing is confusing  :P

On top of that, plot bunnies attacked with a vengeance. I mean, I never never never get more than one a month, rarely even that, and I got three in March. One was inspired by ashes, the other by a novel I've been wanting to write for over a year, and the last by a horse model I oohed and awed over (bc apparently I'm one of those stereotype writers who wrote about horses for the first years of her writing life)

I might work with one. Might.

GUYS, I ACTUALLY READ LAST MONTH. *nods* Yup. I reread A Time To Rise, finally read By Darkness Hid, and finished reading one of my old manuscripts that I got printed out (which totally counts as a book, btw).

In all, I got in about seven books. (four were short, but yeah). It feels really good to be reading again. This month, I'm hoping to finally finish Pride and Prejudice and Mere Christianity (bc the speculative fiction lover in me got a bit distracted halfway through. BUT I WILL FINISH THEM).

I'm also hoping to finish the book of Genesis AT LAST and maybe even make it through Exodus. There's just so much good stuff in the Bible that I want to frame practically every verse on the wall.

I walk/run/bike ride/ramble about plots or walk in content silence here with my mom several times a week. flowers, people

March was a very fun blogging month. I followed several more blogs, wrote some of my now favorite blog posts, and took part in my first blog tour. Here's all the stuff:

graphic from Hope Ann

Also in the awesome world of blogging.....

Savannah @Scattered Scribblings celebrated one year of her novel, Killing Snow. Go give her some support and awesomeness!

Julia @The Barefoot Gal printed a book of her poems and omw it's so awesome and exciting

Kate @The Goodness Revolt posted this and I nearly cried it's so beautiful.

Life came with a vengeance.

Um, actually, getting older/growing up came with a vengeance, and resulted in 3-4 hours of Drivers' Ed every morning except Sundays for two weeks at the end of the month, just when I thought things were slowing down. *headdesk*

Aaaanyway, that was (and still is. yay.) fun. Very fun.

Then I had a test with public speaking the week before. I tried to study but there's no way you can study for standing up with over a dozen pairs of eyes on you and still being able to talk coherently. But I did it and I'm so glad it's over.

Right at the end of the month, I went for a hike at Torry Pines State Reserve and the flowers were blooming. And I mean BLOOMING. There was a whole river of them practically right down to the beach. My organized self decided against bringing a camera for some reason, so all I can do is tell you how beautiful it was xD

And... I'm reading old school books?!? Something just came over me and I'm rereading history books and novels from middle school and grade school. I must be going crazy, especially to want to read a history book (I'm not much of a history person, if you didn't already know :P)

The months are still a little hectic, but I'm finding that I feel calmer if I set aside fifteen minutes every day for quiet.

For nanoers, CAMP STARTED TODAY SORRY I HAD TO REMIND YOU xD This is my first time doing Camp NaNo, and I'm aiming to edit 50 hours.

Edit what?

Ha...um...my novel? I'm supposed to get it back on the 4th. However, I might cheat a little and edit the sequel until then, still counting the hours for my Camp goal though (shhh. don't tell anyone)

I'm also going to be taking Easter week off from blogging (9-16th). I'm going to be at Church a ton, and I'd like to set aside that week to prepare for the celebration of Lord's Resurrection =)

And now for that announcement....

......

Wellll.... I....

I started a newsletter.

I meant to get it going last month, but I had no idea what I'd talk about in it, and I was so busy I couldn't figure out how to get things going right. However, I was able to work on it more, and finally have it all set.


My main reason for this is all the positive feedback and excitement I got from the post I did on my writing updates. I honestly had no idea how much everyone liked posts like that until then. I thought it might be fun to do one once a month, but then I wouldn't be able to do some other posts I had planned.

Thus was born this newsletter.

On the first Tuesday of every month, you'll have an email sitting in your inbox with writing updates, publishing updates, and maybe some snippets. All you have to do is sign-up below! A widget is also going to be on the sidebar now, too.

~subscribe to my monthly newsletter~

PLEASE NOTE: I'm not sending one this Tuesday. The first email will come on May 2nd.



<3

Audrey Caylin

So that was my month. What about yours? Did you get some marching done in March? (sorry for the bad pun xD)